The Secret World's puzzles, storytelling, and atmosphere make for captivating exploration--but occasional frustrations threaten the journey.

In a genre filled with dryads and dragons, The Secret World emerges as a dark and thoughtful counterpoint to the enchanted forests of most modern online role-playing games. Even when the skies are bright, an emotional cloud hangs over your every action. Rather than rush you from waypoint to waypoint, The Secret World takes its time to tell stories and build tension. Instead of spelling out your goals, it makes you think about the reasonable next action hinted at by scribbled notes and cryptic clues. This is an unusual game, and like many unusual games, it demands patience and focus.

What makes this massively multiplayer game so unusual? To begin with, the setting is unlike any other MMOG. The Secret World doesn't whisk you away to a fantasy fairyland or a scorched sci-fi landscape, but occurs in an off-kilter version of our own planet. "Everything is real" a quest giver might tell you, and so it is: biblical plagues, haunted house horrors, and zombie invasions are threats--as well as symptoms of a greater power at play. Even the so-called "hollow earth" is real, serving as a central network of walkways that connect you to your various destinations, where police captains and academy administrators await delivery from their waking nightmares.

Some quests are doled out by objects you stumble across--a corpse sprawled across the road, or a computer terminal, perhaps. Most are provided by any number of mysterious citizens, who offer the most melodramatic of explanations for their needs. The writing and dialogue are notably self-conscious. "The city is a honeycomb of terror, each cell barely cognisant of the others" says one entry in your lorebook. And in a quest giver's monologue: "Men queuing up to cross over, animals guarding the threshold, returning gods and demons. Musical chairs of the soul." None of this writing sounds particularly natural, even though the excellent voice cast sells each and every alliteration and pregnant pause.

Were it not for the zombies, this burg would make for a perfect New England getaway.

As belabored as the writing is, it works remarkably well in context, inviting introspection and analysis. The Secret World cultivates an oppressive tone in almost all of its aspects, including its wordy dialogue. After you choose a faction (Illuminati, Templar, or Dragon), the game introduces you to your home city, and the mysterious organization for which you work. After this lengthy blend of cutscenes and rudimentary exploration, you enter Kingsmouth, Maine, where you keenly sense the inspiration of authors Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe. The darkness is thick, and gnarly trees loom large over you. Iron fences and brick columns surround an abandoned mansion, its rising parapets ever-so-slightly askew.

The dejected atmosphere works hand in hand with the mythical tales that develop as you push forward. In New England, you learn of a league of young monster slayers, and the first girl invited into the fold. In Egypt, cultists worship ancient gods, and sand creatures roam the desert. In Transylvania, the locals tell chilling tales of the Draculesti. Each region is a bleak wilderness to be tamed, and there's a sense that frights and chills lurk just out of view. The bleakness can even get overwhelming, the nighttime becoming so black that you can't see an inch in front of you, making you long for an in-game flashlight to break the gloom. (Certain quests grant you a miner's helmet, but you may not get to use it once the missions are complete.)

The end justifies the means. Even when the end is gruesome and the means are--equally gruesome.

For the most part, however, The Secret World's graphics engine serves the art design well, scattered visual glitches notwithstanding. Of special note are the layers of sound shrouding your adventure. You roam the halls of an abandoned asylum, where the trembles of a bass drum build anxiety, later released by the chilling howl of a tortured spirit. On the outskirts of al-Merayah, shimmering dissonant chords create an air of unease. Even the smallest of sound cues--the notification that you have earned ability points, the discovery of new lore--fit seamlessly into a remarkably cohesive sound design.

Some of The Secret World's quests can be boiled down to the kinds of kill-this, fetch-that tasks you've seen in countless other games. Even when this is the case, however, developer Funcom does its best to give your actions context and chain missions together so that even ordinary objectives are organic to that particular area, and fit within its ongoing narratives. If you enjoy online RPGs for the comfortable cycle of "take quest, arrive at waypoint, kill monsters, return for reward," The Secret World isn't for you. You can queue up only a small number of quests. The downside is that you perform fewer tasks at any given time and earn quest rewards at a slower rate. The upside is that you are fully conscious of why you are doing what you are doing at any given moment.

With that consciousness comes emotional investment and intellectual engagement. Your group's investigation of an amusement park turns to matters far more treacherous than most visits to the fun fair. Claiming ancient artifacts means confronting groaning creatures made of stone and sand. You disguise yourself in order to infiltrate a hideout, and even avoid trip wires and the roaming eye of security cameras to escape a solo dungeon unscathed. Such stealthy endeavors occur in car parks and claustrophobic mines, and in many cases, a head-on conflict means certain death. These are memorable quests, though it's too bad that you must leave any party members behind while you complete them.

Even better are quests that leave fighting and collecting behind and force you to sort out puzzles or even jump online (perhaps using the handy built-in Web browser) to do a bit of research. This might mean identifying a painting, sorting out a word-logic puzzle, or even figuring out the meaning of an Arabic scrawl. Such quests give you pause, particularly when you must piece together clues that provide your next destination. Make no mistake: many investigation quests are challenging, and bring your adventure to a halt as you sort through them. But when that "Eureka!" moment comes, elation kicks in as the game showers you with experience points for your mental efforts.

When you put in the work, you usually expect a game to fulfill its obligation to reward you--or at least provide proper feedback--but The Secret World often fails to fulfill its end of the bargain. Sometimes, this betrayal comes in the form of a small but basic execution flaw, such as the pixel-perfect exactness required when trying to click on certain items. You might stumble across the correct solution, but if you don't hover the cursor over an object in just the right way, you might never be able to interact with it. And then you move on, unaware that you were staring directly at the solution. On other occasions, other players can interfere, interacting with vital items and forcing you to start from scratch.

The Egyptian heat drives lesser men to evil acts.

Other times, The Secret World pushes past "challenging and thoughtful" into "frustrating and time consuming." A puzzle based on Morse code is one thing; having to translate fast-moving audio, or to download a smartphone application capable of doing it for you, is a step too far. Less forgivably, it might be a bug that gets in the way, preventing you from knowing if you are in the wrong, or if the game is. In one case, you must activate a staff that in turn lights a series of fires that guide you to your goal. Yet the fires may not blaze, and you are left staring at the screen, wondering where the clue to your destination might be.

The Secret World rarely suffers from online issues, its bugs more often limited to "annoying" rather than "crippling." Questing issues aside, most glitches relate to elements like chat channels and visual communication. And in some cases, feature execution is simply lackluster rather than outright broken. The in-game browser is a real help, for instance, but there are moments when you wish you could save bookmarks, or at least have the browser remember the last page visited when you reopen it, since you might need to refer to it multiple times. For that matter, opening the browser can lead to a full game crash, making using a laptop or tablet a better option.

It's best to heed warnings of fire and brimstone.

Meanwhile, the excellent storytelling might have you seeking out glowing icons that represent morsels of lore that form a larger narrative. The riddles and mysteries are worth piecing together, given the intriguing tales they convey. And yet discovering these tidbits (and completing certain quests) sometimes requires jumping to higher ground. That wouldn't be such a bad idea, were jumping in The Secret World not so inexact and unsatisfying. In fact, the two most basic elements of most games--movement and action--don't feel quite right. The floaty animations and inconsistent collision detection keep you from feeling like your feet make real contact with the ground, or that your weapons make real contact with your enemies. Enraged cultists fall before you see the sword swipe that kills them, and damage and status effect notifications appear before your grenade lands.

And so the most fundamental aspects of moment-to-moment interaction fail to engage, and this is the unfortunate first impression that could push players to a more immediately fun game. Sadly, the wonderful flexibility and challenge of the Secret World is lost on anyone that quits early on. In the vast majority of RPGs, you level up; here, there are no levels. You do earn experience and reach milestones, however, so while there is no number assigned to your level, you still have that sense of progress associated with it. You frequently earn points that allow you to purchase new abilities and improve your handiness with certain weapons, and ultimately, the idea of a "no levels" system is neither as aimless as you might think--nor as groundbreaking.

More refreshing is the lack of specific classes. In The Secret World, how you fight is determined by the weapons and abilities you equip, and you can mix and match within the game's framework. There are a number of weapon types: shotguns, assault rifles, magical focuses, katanas, and so forth. You can equip two weapons at a time, along with seven active and seven passive abilities. It's a free-form system, and in time, you could potentially purchase abilities from multiple trees, allowing you to take on the right set of abilities for any occasion. In fact, it's best to have multiple sets of gear on hand, should you hit a roadblock.

Lobotomies for some; miniature American flags for others!

If this freedom sounds intimidating, The Secret World includes prebuilt "decks" of weapons and abilities that more or less correspond to classes--and fulfilling one's requirements nets you a nice new outfit. Outfits are purely cosmetic, but after you see some of the stylish threads on others as you pass, you may find yourself in London, browsing aviator sunglasses and trying on pinstripe suits to see which looks most dapper. You can even spend real-world funds on clothing, titles, and other inessentials. Such microtransactions are a free-to-play staple, yet The Secret World sells at retail price and charges a monthly fee. A real-money store thus comes across as a cash grab, though to be fair, you can safely ignore the nickel-and-diming.

As for in-game currency, you spend it on more inventory space, upgrades to your sprint speed, and items such as talismans. Talismans are accessories used to enhance your attributes to best suit your play style. They impact such elements as your hit points, defense rating, and healing prowess. You earn talismans as loot as well, though you might be better off crafting them. By breaking down items into raw materials, you can then upgrade those materials and combine them into talismans and other craftables. You can do this at any time using the crafting interface, which has you dropping these materials into a grid in a particular pattern, Minecraft style. Just be sure to take notes: the game doesn't make it easy to refer to these patterns, though in time, you might remember them.

The light at the end of the tunnel isn't always welcoming.

Alone or with others, some encounters require you to be aware of your surroundings. Many creatures perform area-of-effect attacks, signaling the danger zone with a visible cone or halo. You need to dodge to avoid them--and do so without getting the attention of any other giant bugs buzzing nearby. The game requires situational awareness in other ways too: avoiding flaming crevasses during a boss battle, luring foes from objects that render them invincible, and so forth.

Five-player group dungeons require even greater acumen. You fight more powerful creatures than you do small ones, so each encounter is dangerous if you aren't smart about it. Once you're locked into a boss battle, there is no battlefield resurrection: either enough players remain alive to defeat the shrieking horror, or you all respawn and try again. Navigating environmental hazards while determining creature behavior and the proper ways to attack is part of the fun--as is rearranging your abilities to best suit the needs of the group. Sadly, finding a group is harder than it should be: there is no group finder tool, nor is there a way to queue up for a dungeon from the world at large.

One clue alone is of no use. When combined with others, it is priceless.

You can queue up for player-versus-player matches from anywhere, however. There are three maps in play, one of which is a persistent tug-of-war in which each faction struggles to retain control over key points. The other two are one-off matches of finite duration. There is some entertainment to be had as you roam the persistent map with bands of brothers, shooting up mobs of other players en route to your destination, where a hectic fight against a towering monstrosity awaits. The Secret World isn't a proper home for a PVP enthusiast, however. The auto-grouping tool on the Fusang map is barely helpful, and the skittery movement and combat are front and center here. And on the non-persistent maps, getting into a match can take longer than you would wish.

And so The Secret World isn't a game for those craving a quick and satisfying player battle. Instead, it's for those who seek uninviting crevasses and insidious conspiracies. It's for those who want their intelligence challenged--not to mindlessly battle monsters lifted from the Book of Generic Fantasy Creatures. You must still endure a fair share of annoyances, broken quests, and uninspired fundamentals. The Secret World requires you to dig more deeply than you might have expected. But when you do, you find a fascinating game willing to divulge its secrets to anyone ready to listen.

I was definitely impressed with this game and now having it free should make it more enticing. With all the weird scores GS has been throwing out this year, I would give this game an extra point. 8.5/10. if Gone home gets a 9.5/10 GS needs to review their scoring system or just scrap it totally.

There is a lot of humor in the game like Deputy Andy's story about his father.

I find the game animation to be very smooth and fluid, even when played in 3D Vision where it has to generate at least 120 fps.

By limiting the number of action slots it means that you can do all the combat with one hand on the keys using the mouse to move and dodge.

I haven't had any problems renewing paused quests, and the combat it fun, it's not just a stand there and slug it out, you have to avoid attacks from the bad guys, a outline appears on the ground and you need to move quickly to get out of it to avoid the big attacks.

How you set up and use your attacks makes a big difference as to how effective you are. With only seven keys for attacks (not counting the extra key you get later) you have to make choices.

Do you want to be able to heal or have a bigger attack, do you want to stun the bad guy or set him on fire etc.

I like the fact that there isn't a normal level system, you can have high health, say 10,000 health points of have high damage and lower health, or something in between and you can adjust it at any time.

The quests are fun, not the mind numbing kill 10 chickens and and bring back there tail feathers, you investigate, fight your way through attacking zombies and when you get done you call in the results on your cell phone instead of having to trek back to the quest giver.

I've played MMOs since Ultima Online and this is one of my favorites.

I've played it since beta and now that it's gone free to play several of my friends are getting involved (they all love it) so I started a new character and am having a blast doing it over again.

The graphics are great, if you have a fast enough computer, and I do so it may be that some people are having performance issues, buy none of my friends are having problems.

On the down side there are some issues with quest bugs, I'm dealing with one of those right now, I just can't get the Boat House in the Mist quest to update.

But all in all, this is a great and original game that is a lot of fun to play.

Well, thank God I never bought into the pay-to-play version of this. It's poor beyond belief once you get past the gesture at storytelling that so fragmented it doesn't engage you. The interface makes you realise the effort of other developers. You can't abandon quests and retaking them can be problematic. Support is poor within the game. The animations are poor and on a mid-range laptop (i7 gt555m) it looks nothing like the screen shots. Stuff you take for granted in most MMOs like looting and interacting with other players is tedious. Looks like a twelve year old game, plays like one and the whole grind of it is unrewarding. I bought it as soon as I found out it went free-to-play. I bought it while travelling over Christmas and as soon as I tried to get it going I spent two days having to photograph myself with my copy to send to them to validate I'd bought the copy. When I finally got to play I found it tedious. The spells are unrewarding. Healing is like trying to fill a bucket by spitting in it. I mean, there is nothing charming or engrossing in this game. If you can run it on a gtx 680 it might look a different game but if you are expecting to play casually on mid-range hardware, it runs worse than other games on my cheap machine. It's worth the box price but you soon tire.

What I am really surprised about is not one mention about the insanely huge size of the client...I mean 30 gigabytes for a digital copy to download, and over 10 gigabytes worth of patches if you get the box set? Really? Funcom, what the heck? There is an old computer term to describe software like that....bloatware.

I still have the DVDs and will plan to return once the client is streamlined.

Previously only a yellow outline of a quest item would be visible which you'd need to click exactly on. In the recent update however they made it easier by adding a tooltip with the name of the item when you're close enough and a hotkey so you needn't physically click on it. It works 90% of the time though there are still times where it isn't so obvious. Which is fine.

I ended up getting this, mainly to see how Lovecraftian it is ( quite a few references so far), and I have to say it's probably better than I expected. The questing is much more enjoyable than your standard MMO fare. Investigation quests actually require a bit of lateral thought and are a huge breath of fresh air. It's a very intelligent game and am loving it it. Yeah, there are a few bugs, but nothing game destroying. Took me a week to find my first one.

I've been following this game for a long time, mostly because of "The Longest Journey" and "Dreamfall", which are among my all times favorites.

I'm reading quite a lot of good things about TSW, here and elsewhere but I have little patience for bugs and glitches, so I'm going to wait a few more months for these issues to get fixed but I'm definitly going to get this.

I do suspect with the excessive advertising Blizzard does here, gamespot seems to give them a higher score then deserved. Just head to Diablo 3 forums and see what the players think of their own game, then check out the score gamespot gave it.

I am not a fanboy of TSW, but I was beta testing the game in open beta. I have to say that this is not your typical MMO. The questing is over half the time unique compared to kill x monster.

There was some serious bugs at launch, with chat being the worse bug I ever seen for an MMO. Not being able to communicate with your group was horrible. Most of these bugs have and are being fixed.

As for comments on poor combat I don't see what's different compared to any other MMO. I never played GW long enough to see the AP system someone mentioned, but I find the Ability system very rewarding and almost addicting.

If combat was boring, I wonder why this game forces players to pay attention and always keep moving to avoid enemy aoe's. Relying on a saving dodge cooldown for a boss fight, is much more challenging; than pressing buttons until your agro on the threat meter is too high.

I have not played an MMO since final fantasy that had a combat system that was as challenging as instances in TSW. The difficulty in instances is much higher and rewarding than any MMO to date. If the group doesn't know how to fight a boss, or not geared right there will be a wipe. It can be frustrating, but once the group beats a boss it's very rewarding.

I read people complaining about an in-game store, and how it's wrong. This store only sells outfits and cosmetic items. No gear nor game play items can be purchased. I have always stayed away from p2p for the same reasons you mentioned, but this game doesn't have those problems.

The only game play issue I find annoying would be the movement, not the combat. Having to explain to guild mates that there are different levels of jump in an MMO is a poor design issue. This MMO actually requires a fair amount of platforming to complete quests.

I pre ordered TSW to test it out, because that's what is expected for a game designer. During beta I was not enjoying the game. I felt the game to lack content, and features.

Since the actual release and not being locked into the starting zone, i have found a game where once I max my skills, I can just save my design of character, and then create a new one without having to start over with level and gear. Playing a game without the need for alts is a great design.

Don't play or buy games based on any ones review. Use a review to see what people feel is a plus or minus for a game. I found out during my time at college, that there are different type of gamers. Even hardcore gamers have different ideas. Video games designs are based on grabbing a certain age and interest group.

TSW is a game created for adults who are tired of Barrens Chat, and ninja looters. In-fact I have hardly seen a negative comment towards other players, compared to other mmo's.

TSW is not for gamers who expect everything to be easy, and solutions pointed out to them without any trouble. Players should be happy quests can even be tracked and are easy to find the quest area.

It's sad when a game company tries to break away from making your average mmo, and is attacked for having combat that is similar to other mmos.

Just played Guild Wars 2 (GW2) Beta for the final weekend and I have to say I hope it's the end of pay-to-play monthly-fees. I would really like to try this game but not at £12 a month. If I could buy a year's access for £70 or so, I would be prepared to make the purchase but I think anything more than £5 per month is too high now. With Borderlands 2 and GW2 free-to-play, there is no reason to pay. The quality of GW 2 is astonishing, the quality of engagement in the different labour processes that have gone into the design is remarkable. You stand in a cave or on a bridge and everywhere you look there is extra-detail added merely because the creator wanted to make that extra effort and work longer to produce a moment of beauty. Everywhere you look there is excessive, unnecessary, detail and this is the hallmark of experiences of real worlds, it lifts the sense of being in a world. My advice, don't buy in to anything for another month if you want cooperative on-line play. I made the mistake of buying the year-membership to WoW which was one of the worst decisions I ever made (well it was mainly for my six year old nephew who wanted the mount but now he lost interest in wow!)

I'm a big fan of Lovecraft, having read many of his stories multiple times over the years. The writer himself suggested that this game had a Lovecraft/Poe/King feel. I'm not really interested in MMOs generally. I lost a good two years of real life playing WoW nearly a decade a go and haven't played an MMO since, but this title intrigues me. Very few games cater to that difficult horror niche, but it seems like TSW could be one of them. Games I've enjoyed that had that particular Gothic/Noire horror atmosphere that I'm thinking of are Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth or Undying (which was so creepy I never finished it.) If the story and ambiance of this game are along those lines, I think I would enjoy it. Thoughts?

@johnwck90 I tottaly disagree with you m8.I play it on dual core intel with 4 gb ddr2 ram and nvidia gt430 gpu with 2 gb ram ddr3.my system is definitely a mid range one and i play the game on full graphics on dx9 and on high on dx10 settings.And it runs smooth.Dude there is a rule even if you use a heavy laptop machine IT CAN NOT and it will NOT have the same performance with a Desktop.That is the truth.About the bugs.Really?Name me just One MMO that did not even one bug.And let me tell you this the time i played (around 50 hours so far) i saw just one quest bug.Dont know m8 maybe you need to install it on a desktop

Gamspots credibility never really recovered form the hole Kane & Lynch fiasco. Used to be a place where gamers reviewed games, now it seems there critics more interested in site hits. TSW is far from perfect but has been truly under scored.Try the game and see for yourself why pc gamers have fallen in love with the TSW.

@Stygian_Warlock You'll love it. It's got some bugs that need fixing (they're patching almost every day) but the ambience and character of the game is top notch, and I've played nearly all of them since UO. It's creepy as hell at times and that's the fun of it. Best thing I can say is try it. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

@DiGzY Well, I will definitely get it as soon as they reduce the price. After your recommendation I will definitely try it. I wanted to get it and applied for the beta but didn't get in but when I saw the price, it put me off. I am making it a rule now that unless I can buy a discounted extended membership I won't pay.

@Maersyndel Yeah? We'll see. Not sure if I want to pay a subscription fee. Hey is that the "devil" guy from Lost Highways in your pic? Now that was a crazy movie. David Lynch has made some disturbing films. Wild at Heart, anyone?

Thank you! Ultima Online, huh? In your opinion then, as a veteran of MMOs, what are your top 5? I love RPGs, just not so much the MMO variety. I have tried a few MMORPGs in my time: Guild Wars (1), WoW (of course), City of Heroes, and Diablo 2/3 (although I'm not sure if either Diablo really qualify on this list), but WoW was the only one that I really played for any length of time.

@3amo0o0r Oh great, thank you so much for telling me. I notice that the 6 August is a monday. So, when does the weekend actually start? Is it Friday night like GW 2 beta weekends or will it be saturday?

Dark Age of Camelot piqued my interest when it came out, but at the time, I didn't have a computer that could play it and by the time I did, other stuff was out. Still, always kind of wondered about that game, being an Arthurian Legend nerd and all. Do you know if it followed the tales of Malory or Tennyson? I really enjoyed the King Arthur RPG Wargame for it's authenticity in that regard. Yeah, I'm encountering more guys on these boards that are around our age. My wife still thinks I'm the oddity for being a middle-aged gamer. I read a statistic recently that the average gamer is now 30 years old, so I don't feel that bad. Heh.

@Stygian_Warlock I've played far too many, but my top 5 (not in any particular order and *not* based on how they were released but what they became) are Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxies, World War 2 Online. Those are all games that time and time again I went back to play when nothing else new is satisfying. Even now, if The Secret World wasn't so much fun, I could go back and play DAOC, Anarchy Online or WW2O (now called Battleground Europe) without missing a beat. I still love Age of Conan as well, just wish they hadn't merged my rp-pvp server with the dork-pvp server. TOR was fun *until* I hit 50 with my characters and just had pvp and pve dailies to do (same with RIFT, although RIFT now has some good new things). Everquest 2 was a very fun game right up until I figured out I couldn't solo past about level 23, and Star Trek Online was a great time for the first few weeks (made BG5 with my Klingon and ADM5 with my SF officer) until I figured out they were never going to give Klingons an equal footing pve wise (which was needed to get good gear) Lots of other games too, heck I'm an old guy, was a paratrooper in the Army who then became a computer nerd afterwards :)